Last month, the UK’s only dedicated sports radio station, talkSPORT, announced that they have agreed a deal with the Premier League for an exclusive package of international audio broadcasting rights for the next four football seasons.
talkSPORT will broadcast commentary on all 380 Premiership games each year to football fans across the world in multiple languages including English, Spanish and Mandarin. This extensive commentary required investment in a completely new commentary system setup.
Senior Station Engineer at talkSPORT, Peter Ockelford, approached Glensound in early March 2012 with a brief for the development of the new commentary infrastructure. Three products were developed to meet the commitments of covering the Premiership commentary – the Fader 3, the Fader 6 and the GS-FW029.
The talkSPORT commentary required 32 commentary mixers – 25 x 3 channel versions (Fader 3) and 6 x 6 channel versions (Fader 6). The Fader units are unusual in commentary in that they use Penny and Giles 60mm faders, giving level control to the operators. Each commentator also has independent monitoring of 2 external sources, plus sidetone. Most games will use the Fader 3 units, with the Fader 6 units adding the flexibility for up to 6 contributors on a single programme.
The Glensound Fader Commentary mixers all link back to 4 custom designed production talkback and monitoring units, the GS-FW029. This allows talkback to 10 separate Fader commentary locations, with selectable input monitoring from 12 sources.
Peter Ockelford was asked about his selection of Glensound for the talkSPORT commentary systems: "Who else? I have a long and fruitful relationship with Glensound, who were able to design the units to my exact requirements and deliver in time."
Glensound’s Sales & Marketing Manager Marc Wilson said: "The brief for this project was for commentary units with individual channel faders. This is something we have not developed before on a commentary unit and it was great to have an opportunity to work through the requirements that Peter had for the project, and develop three new units that meet the requirements exactly, without compromise."
(GK)
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